//------------------------------// // 3: Passive Periphrastic // Story: First Pony Plural // by AugieDog //------------------------------// With her eyes squinted to slits, Fluttershy whooshed across the main hall of the Commodores' Club, grabbed the knob of the big front door, wrenched it open, and threw herself into the afternoon sky outside. The nerve of some ponies! Accusing her of not having foresight? Who did that Fluttershy think she was, saying such things about—! Her? Wait. Wasn't—? Wasn't she Fluttershy? Pulling up in mid-flap, she covered her mouth with her hooves. What was she doing? Where was she going? Why was she—? "Look out!" a voice cried, and somepony crashed into her, legs tangling around her barrel and spinning her sideways. "Whoa!" came another cry, and she caught a glimpse of a mare's startled face before a second collision knocked her tumbling ears over fetlocks. "Yow!" rang out either a third voice or one of the first two—Fluttershy found she was quickly losing track of events—and then she was plunging into white fluffiness, cool and squishy and wrapping her in its slowing embrace. Things stayed jumbled for a while after that, the shouts all mixed and muffled, till hooves grabbed her and pulled her out into sunlight again, her saddlebags getting tangled more than once in the gooey cloud stuff. "Are you crazy?" was the first thing she heard, a blurry pony face resolving into an angry pony face. "You can't just stop flying in the middle of the—!" The words broke off suddenly, and the angry pony face shifted to an astonished pony face. "Hey! You— You're Rainbow Dash!" "I am?" Fluttershy asked. Shaking her head to clear it, she tried to say that she wasn't Rainbow Dash, but of course that didn't work. And as much as she wanted to say, 'Ummm,' she refused to let herself, forcing a big smile onto her snout and saying instead, "I mean, yeah, thanks for the—" "Rainbow Dash?" A second pony face popped up grinning behind the first, and a third grinning face behind them both. Blinking, Fluttershy saw a group of eight or nine ponies standing around on the lumpy cloud pavement between two big buildings right in the middle of downtown Cloudsdale. More ponies streamed by overhead, and she realized that, after leaving the Commodores' Club, she must've flown right out onto Central Avenue, the busiest flyway in the whole city. Freezing the way she did would've caused a multi-pony pileup, and the whole mess of them had evidently crashed down into the foundations of what she now recognized as the headquarters of the First Equestrian Bank of Cloudsdale. A quick glance around, though, didn't show her any injuries: all the pegasi were brushing themselves off with smiles instead of looking hurt or grouchy. And in fact, more pegasi were dropping from the traffic above even as Fluttershy slowly got her bearings back, everypony among them smiling. Smiling directly at her... "Oh, Ms. Dash!" A matronly mare wearing a fur-lined coat shouldered through the growing crowd. "What a stroke of luck! My organization, the Daughters of Pegasopolis, is holding a charity ball this weekend, and your attendance would—" "'Scuse me, ma'am," a thin, straw-colored pegasus said. "But I reckon I was in this line ahead of you." "Line?" Fluttershy could barely get the word out. The five or six ponies nearest Fluttershy all reached their wings into their saddlebags and came out with little notebooks. Fluttershy stared, and the grin on the face of the one who'd pulled her from the embankment seemed to inflate like a balloon. "Good thing I've got my autograph book with me, huh?" he asked. "I'll say!" The pony next to him nodded. "You never know who you might run into in Cloudsdale." He elbowed the young mare beside him. "Get it? Run into!" The mare snorted and giggled, and everything around Fluttershy seemed to go into slow-motion, the first pegasus stretching his notebook toward her. Her mind spinning, she tried to remember what Rainbow's signature looked like: all she could think was that she probably didn't use a little heart to dot the 'i'... "Rainbow Dash!" a strangely familiar voice was calling. "Coming through, here, folks! Coming through!" A tan stallion with a fedora jumped over the crowd, and Fluttershy could hardly believe her luck. It was that reporter from earlier with the odd name! She could tell all these ponies that she had to go with him for an interview, and that would keep her from committing plagiarism or forgery or whatever crime she was about to become guilty of! "Thank Celestia I caught up with you!" The reporter somehow managed to squeeze in for a landing between her and the surrounding ring of ponies. "Afternoon, folks!" he called to them, bobbing his head so the press pass in his hatband caught the sunlight. "Etaoin Shrdlu, Cloudsdale Sentinel!" Whirling on Fluttershy, he whipped open the notebook wrapped in the primary coverts of his left wing. "Just wanted to get your reaction, Ms. Dash, to the giant sky kraken that's attacking Cloudsdale even as we speak!" Every pony fell silent, and traffic above reared to a halt, too, all the pegasi up and down the flyway pulling into a hover and staring wide-eyed. Directly at her, of course... "Ummm," she said, and the sound seemed to echo along the cloud walls of the buildings rising over Central Avenue. "A sky kraken? One of those massive, flying, bad-tempered squids, you mean? That kind of sky kraken?" "Nearly as big as the whole town!" Mr. Shrdlu whisked his notebook closed. "But you'll want to assess the situation before committing yourself to what will undoubtedly be a daring and thrill-packed course of action!" He leaped back into the air. "This way, Ms. Dash! And the rest of you can read all about the encounter in tomorrow's edition of the Sentinel!" Fluttershy hesitated for half a heartbeat, but one more look at all those ponies staring at her made the decision easy: she spread her wings and took off after the reporter in what she presumed was the direction of the giant sky squid. Watching that rainbow tail vanish though the doorway of the Commodores' Club side room made her choke back a sob. How could Rainbow Dash say such things about her? And yes, she had to admit that she'd said a few harsh things herself to...to— Wait. She was Rainbow Dash! Wasn't she? Dash shook her head quickly. Of course she was Rainbow Dash! But the things she'd been yelling at Fluttershy, she...she hadn't been yelling them at Fluttershy. And Fluttershy hadn't been yelling at her, either. They'd each been yelling at themselves... "Whoa," a low voice said to her right, and Dash blinked to see Hoops blinking back at her, Misty Morning right beside him. "I...I thought you guys were, like, friends and stuff. I mean, isn't that kind of the basis for the new political movement rising to power in Equestria? You and Princess Twilight and all being friends?" For a moment, Dash could only blink at him, and Misty turned wide eyes toward him, too. He looked back at her. "What? I keep up with current events. I mean, we totally used to talk about that stuff all the time, Misty, back before..." He waved a wing at the competing stacks of decorations all over the room. "Before ev'rything got so complicated..." Misty touched a hoof to his shoulder. "But that's just it, Hoops. Life is complicated. You're smart and you're insightful and you know how to solve problems, but you're also irresponsible and lazy and kind of a jerk." Hoops' head drew back. "Are...are you complimenting me or insulting me?" "Both, you knucklehead." She moved her hoof to touch her own chest. "'Cause I'm the same way. You like me, but you want to yell at me sometimes, too, don't you?" "I don't like you." Hoops stepped toward her. "I love you. And I don't want to yell at you some of the time. I want to yell at you pretty much all of the time." With a laugh, Misty leaned forward, and their lips met. Staring, Dash found herself thinking of the feeling that would flood over her in the split second between making a mistake and spinning out into the crash that always seemed to follow her mistakes: a mix of joy and dread as well as the absolute certainty that, no matter how badly she was about to get messed up, she would be right back here doing this exact same thing again as quickly as she could manage it. She didn't think that feeling had a name, but she knew it when she saw it. "It takes patience," she heard herself murmuring. "And practice. And deciding that what you're after is worth working for." The two of them jumped away from each other, their heads snapping around in Dash's direction. "Fluttershy!" Misty blurted. "I'm sorry! I...I forgot you were there!" "It's okay." For the first time, Dash was glad she couldn't manage to raise her voice. "I'm just happy you're talking instead of shouting." The sound they both made then wasn't quite a laugh and wasn't quite a grunt. Misty looked back at Hoops, and even though her eyes narrowed, they didn't have the same hardness in them that they'd had earlier. "All right," she said. "Forget about rainbows. I mean, Ice Slicer isn't that far from retirement. If you let him know you're interested, as soon as he steps aside, you'll be ready to slide right into place as head of the hailstone department." Hoops' jaw tightened, but then he cocked his head and gave a quick nod. "And all this?" He waved a wing again at the overwhelmed walls. "I mean, I know this is a big deal, Misty. I'm a nobody from a family of nobodies getting married to a Commodore inside the freaking Commodores' Club! I just...I wanna be able to see the place, y'know? See the building that drunken pegasi have been crashing around in all the way back to the days of Commander Hurricane." He flashed a smile. "History, right?" For a moment, Misty just stood there, and Dash couldn't help cringing. See? that stupid little voice in her head started whispering. When will you learn that you can't do anything right? But a slow smile was spreading across Misty's muzzle. "All right. And maybe we can make some history of our own." She stretched her neck to kiss him again. Dash could barely keep herself from crowing. She craned her head around to grin at her cutie mark— And not only wasn't it glowing, but it kept on not being her cutie mark. "Ummm," she said, but Hoops and Misty were still kissing. And as much as she didn't want to interrupt— "Are...are you two gonna be okay, then?" "Mmm-hmm," Misty sort of purred, and Dash felt her face heating up. They broke the kiss, and Misty bent down to push the top of her head into the crook of Hoops' neck. "You'll come to the wedding, of course, Fluttershy, you and—" Misty stopped, blinked, and looked back over her shoulder. "Oh! You and Rainbow Dash! Are you—?" "We'll be fine." Dash took wing, the stupid sweater binding her as she flapped. "It was wonderful seeing you again, Misty, and...and you, too, Hoops. I guess." Hoops coughed his laugh this time and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, sorry for all the times I've been a jerk, y'know? And tell Crash I said sorry, too...though maybe don't tell her I called her Crash." He gave a little whistle. "I'm really bad at this, aren't I?" "Well..." Dash's smile came easily for a change. "'Crash' is actually her nickname in the Wonderbolts now." Turning for the door with a nod and a wave, though, her smile faded. Because it was starting to look like this wasn't the friendship problem she and Fluttershy had been sent here to solve... The other obvious one popped quickly into her mind, but she and Fluttershy weren't having problems. Not with each other anyway. As near as Dash could remember, in fact, she'd only started yelling earlier when she'd looked up and seen herself behaving like a jerk the way she always did. So...could a pony have a friendship problem with herself? Not that Dash did: she was Rainbow Dash, and she wouldn't trade her life for any other pony's in Equestria! And yeah, sure, sometimes she came on a little strong. Sometimes she got a little carried away with her own awesomeness and maybe didn't think about how the things she did might crash into the lives of the ponies around her. And yeah, sure, maybe sitting back and letting Hoops and Misty sort through their feelings on their own had worked out, and maybe that kind of quiet helping could be useful once in a while. But— Coming out into the main hall of the Commodores' Club, Dash couldn't think of anything to put after that 'but.' All she knew was that she had to find Fluttershy. If this whole thing was really about the two of them working on their own inner problems— The Club's main doors burst open, and a pegasus zoomed in. "Commodores!" she shouted. "We've a sky kraken dead ahead! Commodore Galaxy's called for all hooves on deck! This is not a drill! I repeat: this is not a drill!" The breath caught in Dash's throat. Sky kraken didn't usually come into Equestrian air space, but every time they did, she knew from Wonderbolt history, cloud cities dissolved and ponies got hurt. And you think you'll be able to help? Or are you just interested in the glory? "Shut up!" she hissed, and without another thought, she raced out the door. "Understand, now," Mr. Shrdlu was saying as Fluttershy followed him east along Hurricane Way, all the traffic, she couldn't help but notice, heading rapidly in the other direction, "I'll be expecting an exclusive interview afterwards." He did a barrel roll. "Rainbow Dash defeating a sky kraken? Front page, here I come!" Nodding absently, Fluttershy tried to review what she knew about sky kraken, but she was so rattled by everything that had happened so far today—the prank, the call from the Cutie Map, Misty and Hoops, the way she'd yelled at Rainbow Dash— Not that she had been yelling at Rainbow Dash, of course. She hadn't even really been yelling at herself. She'd been yelling at the version of herself that cringed and whined and said 'Ummm' all the time, the version of herself that listened way too often to that awful little voice in her head. The awful little voice, she realized with a start, that she hadn't been hearing since she and Rainbow had left Ponyville. And now here she was getting into arguments and traffic accidents and flying off to confront a gigantic sky squid! And, yes, maybe some of those things weren't exactly what a reasonable pony would call good, and maybe she could've avoided those less good things if she'd had that inner voice warning her. But too much of the voice was even worse than not enough: her whole life so far had shown her that. What she really needed to do was find a way to balance her caution with— "Ms. Dash?" Somepony was whispering directly into her ear; Fluttershy started back and saw that she and Mr. Shrdlu had arrived at the eastern edge of Cloudsdale. The sky ahead was full of big fluffy white cumulonimbuses—or was it cumulonimbi? She could never remember... Not that it mattered. Because among the big towers of cloud sprawled a huge grayish white squid monster. And while Mr. Shrdlu had been exaggerating—the kraken wasn't as big as the whole of Cloudsdale—he hadn't been exaggerating much. The one eye that Fluttershy could see peering out from a break in the not-quite-thunderheads was easily the size of the Commodore's Club, and if the barbs on the ends of those tentacles started flailing around, they would have no trouble whatsoever shearing off large chunks of the town. "Ms. Dash!" Mr. Shrdlu hissed again in her ear. "What are you waiting for? There's the beast: defend the city!" Fluttershy blinked across the furlongs of air. "But...it's not attacking." She turned to give him a little bit of a glare. "You said it was attacking." "Well?" He gestured with a hoof. "Have you ever known a sky kraken not to attack the city if given the chance?" "Actually?" More of the information she'd read was coming back to her. "This is the first time in nearly a hundred years that a sky kraken has come anywhere near Equestria." Fluttershy ran her gaze along what she could see of the creature's skyscraper-sized head. "I think something might be wrong." "Wrong?" His jaw dropped, and he gestured some more. "There's a sky kraken in Cloudsdale's flight path! It doesn't get any wronger than that!" Then his eyes narrowed. "Or could it be that the famous Rainbow Dash isn't quite the heroine she likes to pretend she is? Could it be that the famous Rainbow Dash is all talk and no action?" You could do it, you know, came the voice in her head. But it wasn't the awful, whispery, sneaky little voice this time; it was a confident voice, a voice with a grin and a chuckle in it. You could fly right out there, give that squid a kick, and tell it to be on its way. And if it gave you any guff, you could Stare it right down and make it do whatever you wanted it to do. You could save Cloudsdale, be on the front page of the paper, and be a real heroine. That's what you could do. Isn't it? "No," she whispered, her attention focused on the kraken; it was trying to hide, she realized suddenly, looking at the way it kept sliding around to put the thickest of the clouds between itself and the city. "That...that wouldn't be right." "You better believe it wouldn't!" Again, Mr. Shrdlu's voice startled her out of her thoughts. "Now! You head out there, drive off that monster, then come back here and give me my scoop!" Fluttershy shook her head. "Sorry, Mr. Shrdlu, but what this situation needs is my friend Fluttershy." Mr. Shrdlu blinked. "Who?" "Yay!" a little voice warbled behind her, and Fluttershy turned to see a wonderfully familiar green sweater fluttering toward her with one of her best friends in the whole wide world inside it. "Oh, yeah." The reporter flipped open his notebook. "You sure that's her name? I've got it written down as—" "Oh, Rainbow Dash!" Huffing and puffing, Dash settled onto the cloud beside Fluttershy. "I'm so, so sorry about what I said! Can you ever forgive me?" Fluttershy had to blink to clear her vision. "If you can forgive me," she said. "Besides, it wasn't really you I was mad at." "Me, too." Dash blew out a breath. "Now, what's all this about a sky kraken?" "Exclusive!" the reporter called after them, but Dash just rolled her eyes: it was maybe the fifth time he'd used that word just in the minute and a half it had taken for Fluttershy to bring her up to speed and for the two of them to jump off Cloudsdale. "Yeah, yeah!" Fluttershy yelled over her shoulder. "You just let the Commodores know that Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy have the situation under control!" "You bet!" His voice was getting more distant and more echoing. "What a scoop!" And then it was just the two of them flying toward the giant floating squid lurking behind the cumuliform cloudbanks ahead. Hearing nothing but the whoosh of the wind in her mane and feathers got Dash pretty antsy pretty quickly. She tried to think of something to say, but Fluttershy spoke up first. "Misty and Hoops: did...did everything go all right with them?" Dash had to grin. "They invited us to the wedding, so I'd guess so." "Really?" Fluttershy turned those big lavender eyes toward her. "Then we're here for a different friendship problem?" "I guess." Would the stupid magic even let her ask her next question? Dash shook her head and asked a different one instead. "So why did you wait for me? You could've dealt with this kraken thing by yourself easily enough." Fluttershy shook her head. "We started this together, and we're going to finish it together." She ducked her head a little, and Dash could almost see the real her there behind everything. "And, well, when flying out to visit a giant, city-smashing monster, it's always nice to have a friend along." "Then—" Holding up a hoof, Dash moved it back and forth between herself and Fluttershy. "We're okay? With each other? If you know what I mean?" "I do." Fluttershy sighed. "And we are. It...it sounds like both of us get a little upset at ourselves sometimes, but when push comes to shove?" The smile she gave then was one hundred percent Fluttershy. "I wouldn't want to be any pony other than me." "Yes!" Dash pulled into a hover, cranked her head around to stare past the hem of her sweater at her own flanks, and watched as they...as they— Stayed yellow with pink butterflies. "Oh, come on!" she shouted as well as she could with her soft little voice. "What the hay's going on around here, anyway?" "What?" The air stirred beside her, Fluttershy backing her own wings and bobbing to a halt. "You...you thought the friendship problem was you and me? Or not you and me but you and you and me and me. Or—" Her throat tightened; she closed her eyes and swallowed. "Oh, this magic! It's almost as annoying as that awful voice I used to have in my head!" Perking her ears, Dash spat out a laugh. "Yeah, that thing's the worst, isn't it?" Fluttershy's eyes popped open. "You mean...you have one, too?" Dash shrugged. "It's not usually as bad as it's been since this whole thing started, but yeah, it's always muttering away up here." She tapped her forehead. Again, Fluttershy's throat wobbled, but she went on. "It tells me all the bad things that might happen if I do whatever I'm thinking about doing. I know it's not real, but I...I sometimes can't help listening..." "Yeah." Dash found herself swallowing, too. "What gets me, though, is when it starts telling me the bad stuff that might happen if I don't do what I'm thinking..." "Huh." Fluttershy cocked her head. "Maybe you should start thinking about the bad things that might happen if you do, and I should start thinking about the bad things that might happen if I don't." "Huh." Dash cocked her head as well, and the sideways motion brought into clear focus the giant gray eyeball peering at them from between two masses of cloud not more than a couple flaps away. "Ummm..." she said. Fluttershy gave a little snort, her mouth going sideways. "Seriously, though. Do you have to say 'ummm' so often? It's not—" Raising a hoof and trying not to let it shake, she pointed. Fluttershy blinked, turned, and rasped out a sort of an "Eeep!" sound. The eyeball—bigger, Dash was sure, than her whole cloud house—blinked once, and the air sort of rumbled. Not like a thunderclap and not like a rockslide and not like any other rumbling Dash had ever heard before, but the way it seemed to shake the sky all over, under, and around her, 'rumble' was pretty much the only word for it. "Oh!" Fluttershy said. "Yes! Hello! Is...is there something we can do to help you?" A little of the tightness in Dash's chest relaxed—if Fluttershy could talk to it, then maybe they'd all live through this—and she concentrated on keeping her wings flapping through the weird thrumming air: it moved almost like the wind was blowing, but all her weather senses kept telling her it was dead calm. Okay, maybe 'dead' was the wrong word to use right here and now... "Oh!" Fluttershy said again. "I'm so terribly sorry to hear that! If...if you'll hold on just a moment, I'll check to see what my friend thinks!" She spun around with another huge smile. "This is Krystal. She forgot her boyfriend Kraig's birthday yesterday, and he got awfully upset with her. She'd been having a rough week, though, and she yelled at him. That started an argument, and he flew off faster than she'd ever seen him move before. She got very, very worried about him, and she followed his trail all night right here to Cloudsdale." It took some effort for Dash not to wonder out loud about giant squids named Krystal and Kraig, but fortunately, the more important question she could ask was: "You mean there's another sky kraken somewhere around here?" "Oh. Ummm..." Fluttershy's blue cheeks blushed a dark purple. "You see, sky kraken exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism. The females are all, ummm..." She waved a hoof, and for the first time, Dash realized that most of what she'd taken for the gray clouds at the edge of a frontal boundary drifting toward her was in fact a thin layer of cloud with a humongous curving slab of squid stretching up, down, and away in both directions for just about as far as Dash cared to look right at that moment. "While the males," Fluttershy was going on, "well, they're not much bigger than ponies, actually." Of all the questions that popped into Dash's head this time, she decided to ask the safest one: "And she thinks he's hiding somewhere in Cloudsdale?" "His scent makes her sure of it." Fluttershy waved to the city floating at station to the west and below them. "She wants to let him know she's sorry, but she remembers her grandma saying that the vibrations of a female kraken speaking can sometimes make clouds held together by pegasus magic liquefy into rain and fall to the ground." Dash looked at Cloudsdale again, some of the tightness coming back into her chest. "Okay, yeah, that'd be a bad thing." Turning to Fluttershy—and the giant, cloud-framed eyeball behind her—Dash shrugged. "So what kind of things does Kraig like? What can we use to lure him out?" "Ooo!" With a spin, Fluttershy spread her forelegs before the eye. "What would you have gotten him, Krystal, if you'd remembered his birthday? We can maybe get one of those, hold it up above the city, and announce that it's your apology present!" Quickly holding up her own hoof, Dash added, "Make it two of them, whatever they are: one for his birthday, and the other for the apology." Fluttershy nodded, but Krystal was already answering: at least, it was either that or some weird sort of inland hurricane was mixing up the local pressure gradients... "Hmmm." Rubbing her chin, Fluttershy gave another nod. "She says he likes warm, soft things, and if they're colorful, that's even better. So all we have to do is find—" She stopped, her eyes going wide, and reached around to unfasten the flaps of her saddlebag. "Perfect!" Dash sang out as loudly as she could, and she swooped over to grab a couple of the sweaters. "Does he like red or blue or green or what?" It took several minutes to explain the plan to Krystal, but once she got it, her giant eye sort of squinted and she made a sound like machinery grinding that Dash hoped was a squeal of delight. After another several minutes of Dash holding all the sweaters up one after the other, Krystal picked a red one and a blue one that she thought would look good on her boyfriend. Draping those two over her back, Dash packed the others into Fluttershy's panniers again while Fluttershy said, "Very good choices." A little shiver passed across her shoulders, and she looked at Dash. "I...I guess I'll have to be the one shouting and getting Kraig's attention. Can you be there holding the sweaters so he can see them?" Dash couldn't help giving a little laugh. "You mean modeling them? 'Cause, y'know, one of us used to be a world-famous model. Just like one of us is currently a world-famous loudmouth." "Now, now." Fluttershy raised a hoof. "You know as well as I do that some situations call for a loud mouth." She touched Dash's shoulder. "And we wouldn't have it any other way." With quick teeth, she refastened her pack. "Now. Shall we?" They were already looking down on the city, so they headed straight across to a point above the tallest building in the center of town. Police ponies seemed to be hovering everywhere beneath them, and the muttering of thousands of confused pegasi drifted on the warm updrafts the city constantly generated. The sweaters clutched in her forehooves, Dash gave Fluttershy a smile and murmured, "Deep breath, now." Fluttershy's nod was more a jerk of her head than anything else, but she did take a deep breath before shouting, "Kraig Kraken! Krystal wants you to know that she's very, very sorry she forgot your birthday and very, very sorry that she yelled at you when you got upset! She hopes you'll be able to forgive her, and she's gotten these two lovely sweaters for you to show you how sorry she is!" The muttering had gone almost completely still, the police ponies staring at Fluttershy like she'd lost her mind. Dash didn't hesitate, though: with her left foreleg up inside the blue sweater and her right foreleg up into the red one, she held them out for all to see. She even did a slow turn, floating there beside Fluttershy, so this squid guy could get a good view no matter where in town he might be hiding. She went all the way around once in the silence without anything happening and was just starting her second rotation when something gray and moving caught her attention. Rising quickly from the north end of Cloudsdale, it was the wrong shape and had way too many legs to be a pony, but as it got closer and closer, she could see it really wasn't all that much bigger than a good-sized stallion. Of course, that was still way bigger than any squid had a right to be, but Dash somehow pulled a smile across her snout as the kraken jetted up and squeaked to a halt, some kind of gibbering sound squirting out of it. "Yes," Fluttershy was saying, apparently in reply to the squid. "She asked us to come up here especially just to give them to you." Not letting her smile waver, Dash held out the sweaters, and the squid guy did some more jabbering, flailing his legs around and sort of puckering parts of his head. He dove in close to Dash, and before she could flinch, he had squeezed himself up inside the red sweater, his head sliding through till his eyes popped out over the neck. "Kraig says thank you very much," Fluttershy said behind her. "He'll just take the blue one in his tentacles, if that'll be all right." Dash let go just as five or six legs came swarming up to snatch the other sweater, then with a few more burps and wiggles, Kraig shot away through the sky toward the massive shadowy shape of Krystal, still lurking around on the other side of the frontal ridge. One of those weird rumbling noises twitched across Dash, and the sky kraken began drifting away from the city. "Krystal says thank you very much as well." The sudden whispery quality of Fluttershy's voice made Dash's ears leap straight up, and she twisted around, her haunches tingling. The butterflies on her flanks were twitching, glowing, cracking, and flaking, her own beautiful blue hide and flashing thunderhead showing through. "Yes!" Spinning around, she watched part of the blue on Fluttershy's hind legs puff away like dust, pink butterflies seeming to dance and swirl there against a pale yellow background. "I'm Rainbow Dash!" she yelled, punching at the sky with a front hoof. "And you!" A quick barrel roll brought her to Fluttershy's side. "Say your name! Go on! Say it right out loud!" Fluttershy giggled. "I'm Fluttershy." She wrapped her forelegs around herself and whispered it the second time: "I'm Fluttershy." "And we are outta here!" Dash whirled, gave Cloudsdale a ragged salute, and— "Oh, but we're not," Fluttershy said, her voice quiet but still hitting Dash right between the ears. "What?" Dash waved her arms. "I mean, we just solved a friendship problem for a couple sky squids, Eff! I wanna get home, wash this dye off, get these contacts out, and do as close to nothing as I can for at least the next two or three days!" Brushing at her forelegs, Fluttershy sighed. "I wouldn't mind getting cleaned up as well, but we did promise that nice Mr. Shrdlu a story for the Cloudsdale Sentinel." It took a fair amount of effort for Dash not to just let herself drop all the way down to a loud and messy impact with the hills below. "You're kidding, right? Tell me you're kidding." "We promised, Rainbow Dash." "But— You— He— It—" Try as she might, though, Dash couldn't think of a way to finish any of those sentences. "Fine!" she finally got out through clenched teeth. "But not the whole story, right? I mean, saving Cloudsdale, yeah, but maybe we could leave out the part about the prank?" "Rainbow! Are you suggesting that we lie?" Fluttershy's eyes went wide, but the twinkle in them told Dash all she needed to know. Groaning at the realization that every detail was going to be appearing in the Cloudsdale Sentinel the next day, Dash let herself sink toward the cheers that were starting to rise up to them from the city below.